Poetry & Novels

A Guernseyman is duped, 1590

A cheeky tale, suspiciously similar to Boccaccio's Decameron, from The Stranger's Guide to Guernsey and Jersey, 1833, pp. 128 ff., written by Dr Thomas Bellamy. 'In an old book, now out of print and very scarce, published in 1590, entitled Morgan's Feats of the Cardinals, is the following ludicrous account of the midnight ramble of a gentleman, sent from the island of Guernsey to Naples, in Italy, to buy horses.' The detail is from the frontispiece of the Library's 1566 edition of the Chroniques et Annales de France, Vol. I.

Emma Austen to Jane Lefroy

Jane Austen connections.

The Anglo-Sarnian Alliance: a poem

A poem reproduced in J. Linwood Pitts' Guernsey and its Bailiwick, 1889.

Lord Byron's Newfoundland Dog, 1823

Edward Le Mesurier was the son of Havilland Le Mesurier and Elizabeth Dobrée. He was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy before settling in Genoa, where he married Amelia Augusta Wright.

The Guernsey peasant and patois, 1846

The swarthy locals and their barbarous dialect, an excerpt from the Dublin University Magazine, 1846. This is no doubt based on Inglis' 1834 description of the Guernsey peasant: 'I cannot greatly compliment the personal appearance of the Guernsey country people. There are dark and sparkling eyes among the women .... The men are, with few exceptions, badly limbed; and among the women too, the bust is better than the ankles.'

Ever-happie Iles: Michael Drayton's Poly-olbion

The sprightly Muse her wing displays. And the French islands first surveys—Drayton's poetic description of Britain, written in 1612, opens with the Channel Islands. This is the 1813 rendition into modern English by Robert Southey. The Library has a facsimile of the 1622 edition, published for the Spenser Society in 1889.

Cherries, by Metivier

The poet George Métivier's family home, St George in the Câtel (the painting of the house is by Young, 1821), was planted with cherry trees, about which he fondly reminisced, along with the birds that feasted on them. Here are some excerpts from the Guernsey Magazine of November 1884 about cherries, taken from a series called 'Guernsey Popular Names of Plants, as compared with those in other places,' No. 8, 'Based on Mr Métivier's Glossaire.'

On a bed of Guernsey lilies

Written in September, 1763, by the Christian visionary, Christopher Smart. The photograph of a Guernsey lily, which flowers in autumn, is from the Carel Toms collection.

La vielle rue d'la Fontaine, et les Nouviaux Marchis: par Un Catelain

A poem in Guernsey French, author unknown, about the demolition of Fountain Street and the building of the Markets, quoted by Louisa Lane Clarke in The Folk Lore of Guernsey and Sark, 1880. The linguistic notes are hers.

Bimbashi Garland

Major Herbert Garland (1880-1921) was an explosives expert and the author of a short romantic novel set in Guernsey entitled Diverse Affections; his life is much more interesting than his novel. The effects of the devastating techniques he pioneered in Arabia are still being felt today.

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